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Last week I wrote about Pam and Art Crawford's family photo dilemma. With both the Crawford and Jones families claiming this couple as their relatives, it's a pixel puzzle.

This week I'm tackling the costume clues in the image.

Men's ties and collars can help pinpoint a date. This man wears an all-over patterned tie. The design has a slight diagonal pattern, which suggests it's from about 1930. The points in the collar look longer than a middle-pointed shape, which suggests it might be a 1930s style called the "California Collar." Clark Gable popularized it.

Lace collars were very popular in the 1930s. Around the woman's neck are pearls. Simulated pearls could be bought from the Sears catalog for approximately 95 cents. It's very difficult to see due to the shadows in this picture, but her dress has a soft flouncy sleeve.

Both husband and wife wear round glasses. Round shapes were common in the 1920s, but thin metal frames were also still available in the 1930s. Since they probably didn't change glasses very often, it's likely these are from the late 1920s.

These two look remarkably alike for husband and wife. Could they instead be brother and sister?

Peggy Deras

Friday, April 12, 2013 5:06:18 AM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)

Could Grandpa Jones have lived long enough after Mary Jane's death to remarry to someone in Pam's family, thereby becoming a Grandpa Jones to Pam's grandmother?

I have noticed a tendency in some family trees to omit any family add-ons in favor of a strictly by the book, biologically-direct family line. Other marriages, whether a result of death or divorce, are overlooked, including children of those marriages. Instead, only the first family's mother and children are in the tree, or vice versa with a second family's tree. A similar situation occurred in my tree several generations back. Offspring of the second family were in a state of denial about the existence of a first family for years.